Several European flagship projects have emerged towards European sovereignty in chip design and computing infrastructure. Among them, the EU Processor Initiative (EPI) spearheads the development of the first EU processor. To ensure the successful integration of the EU processor into the cloud computing ecosystem and strengthen even more EU data sovereignty, it is necessary to develop the software support at the same pace with the hardware development. The harmonic relationship of the developed software and hardware is of paramount importance in order to establish an EU cloud platform able to compete with the mainstream solutions which are currently delivered by US companies. AERO aims to upbring and optimize an open-source software ecosystem that encompasses a wide range of software components ranging from operating systems to compilers, runtimes, system software and auxiliary software deployment services for cloud computing. The AERO software stack combines the aforementioned software components with novel software and hardware interfaces as a means to seamlessly exploit the heterogeneity aspects of the EU processor with regards to high performance, energy efficiency, and security. The ultimate objective of AERO is to facilitate easy migration of existing cloud customers to a cloud infrastructure that harnesses the capabilities of the EU processor. To showcase early adoption and the potential business value, the developed software and hardware technologies will be piloted by use cases representative of important EU industrial domains, such as automotive and space exploration.

The proposed Cyber-security Excellence Hub in Estonia and South Moravia (CHESS) will integrate leading cybersecurity institutions and capitalize on the strengths of both regions to address important Europe-wide challenges. South Moravia is a major ICT industry & education powerhouse of the Czech Republic, with a very focused and coherent smart specialization strategy targeting cybersecurity. Estonia is among the most advanced digital societies globally, with exceptional e-government deployment – which, however, makes it vulnerable to various cyber threats. CHESS will directly follow the strategies and roadmaps of the European Cybersecurity Competence Pilots and build on the experience of CHESS partners involved in all four of these pilots, contributing to safe transition of the EU to full-scale digital society. The CHESS Hub will conduct a thorough needs analysis of the two regions and develop a joint cross-border R&I strategy for cybersecurity. The strategy development will be aided by implementation of pilot R&I projects that will reinforce the cross-regional collaboration, engage regional innovation ecosystems and build evidence for future projects. Gaps in skills and expertise identified in the regions will be removed by training and knowledge transfer. Finally, dedicated task forces will ensure sustainability of CHESS by integration with regional, national, and EU-level strategies and funding programmes. To exploit the project outputs, especially the pilot project results, CHESS will aid with market potential assessment and link researchers and innovators with entrepreneurship training and business consultancy services available in the regions. The strategizing, skills-building and pilot R&I will cover the totality of the cybersecurity field, with special attention to 6 Challenge Areas: Internet of Secure Things; Security Certification; Verification of Trustworthy Software; Blockchain; Post-Quantum Cryptography; and Human-centric Aspects of Cybersecurity.

QARC is a targeted proposal that aims at the practical deployment of post-quantum cryptographic (PQC) technologies into real-world applications and infrastructures. It is focused on implementing PQC to open-source software and on specific platforms, such as embedded constrained devices and hardware platforms, such as Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs). For these platforms, where secure implementations of PQC algorithms are still lacking, the consortium will develop novel prototypes and evaluate them in realistic pilots designed in collaboration with National Cyber Security Authorities (NCSAs). The focus will be devoted to 1) the design and implementation of hybrid schemes guaranteeing security even if legacy or some PQC families fail, 2) cryptographic agility providing easy cryptographic updates, and 3) implementation security and resistance to side-channel attacks. Using secure implementations, pilots on eGovernment, Cloud infrastructures, NCSAs’ services, and open-source software will be run across the EU to obtain exemplary deployment strategies and create good practices for the transition from legacy to PQC cryptography. A major component of QARC is the strong involvement of National Cyber Security Authorities as consortium partners. This will ensure coordinated transition strategies and aligned national roadmaps. The project includes activities for building the NCSA network, creating policy briefs, conducting comparative studies of multiple roadmap implementations in different countries, identifying lessons learned, and facilitating scientific, commercial, and community support in these transitions. A particular focus is given to small-to-medium countries with agencies with limited resources. In addition to technical tasks, the QARC project also includes activities focused on standardization and legislation updates and the training and awareness-raising activities that are necessary components of successful PQC transition.

The exciting frontiers opened by the development of quantum computers (QC) come at the cost of breaking the foundations of current digital security. The research community is working to the definition of post-quantum cryptography (PQC) to counteract this threat. However, the transition to PQC is delicate and takes time because it impacts many functions, algorithms, and protocols in a-priori unknown cascade of dependencies. QUBIP is conceived to contribute to the EU transition to PQC with the goal of simplifying and making replicable the process by means of recommended practices and counteract post-quantum threats as soon as possible. QUBIP focuses on digital infrastructure addressing the 5 main building blocks that use public-key cryptography for security purposes: hardware, cryptographic libraries, operating system, communication protocols and applications. QUBIP address all 5 blocks coherently solving all dependency issues that may arise inside each block and among blocks with the final aim to validate at TRL6 three infrastructures making use of those blocks in IoT-based Digital Manufacturing, Internet Browsing, and Software Networks Environments for Telcos use cases. The return-of-experience from the three practical exercises is then maximized by developing a migration playbook, that will contain the lessons learned and an evaluation of all the technical, economic, and legal barriers encountered together with the solutions to overcome them to enable the definition of a replicable process, suitable to provide structured accompanying and practical guidance to industrial stakeholders. The technical activities are corroborated by three supporting activities (i) evaluation of the capabilities of QCs to assess their implication to primitives, algorithms and protocols adopted, and contribution to (ii) standardization efforts addressing transition to PQC processes and (iii) policy measures addressing technology changes coming from the advent of QC and PQC.